Irregulars: Stories by Nicole Kimberling, Josh Lanyon, Ginn Hale and Astrid Amara (22 page)

He opened his mouth, but Rake’s fingers, slick with his own hot pre-ejaculate, moved inside him, causing the strangest tingling. Archer murmured wonderingly and then sucked in a sharp breath as Rake guided himself into his body.

Rake took the sound that tore out of Archer’s throat as encouragement and he wasn’t far wrong, though Archer was transfixed for a second or two with shock. He’d never experienced that peculiar sensation, that mix of stinging and satisfaction—like needles dipped in bliss were floating through his veins and everywhere they stuck came a flash of sheer delight—but he’d read about it. The ultimate one-handed read, in fact. He cried out and Rake stopped at once.

Archer panted, “You’re…not…Canadian, are you?”

Rake’s eyes turned red. His lips parted in a smile and Archer could see the glint of his sharp incisors. Terrifying. Beautiful. “Don’t you recognize the real thing?”

Oh yes, he recognized the real thing. “Demon?” It came out as an inquiry, although that wasn’t the real question.

“And you with all those naughty postcards?” Rake laughed down at him and the barbed cock pushed deeper into Archer’s body, releasing more of the tiny, felicitous pinpricks.

Hearing that rough, purring laugh, Archer drove back, impaling himself deeply, and it was Rake’s turn to catch his breath.  

Green and gold sparks danced off Archer’s skin and crackled around them. Rake jerked his hips, laughing silently as Archer cried out and arched up. Rake said something in Babylonian.
Lover? Lovely?
Tiny flames leaped in the black-red void of his eyes.

They began to rock, the moon pulling the tide, the tide grabbing for the shore, the melting sand giving way with a final tug at the roots of the mountains...

“Wait. More. I need more.” Archer groped for Rake’s hand, feeling the callused warmth of his smooth skin, the curve of his long razor-sharp nails as he placed Rake’s hand on his groin. “Hold me.”

“Like this?” The voice was no longer remotely human, but Archer no longer feared disappointment. No longer feared anything at all.

He wrapped the long fingers around his rigid cock, molding them into a fist. To his delighted relief, Rake slipped easily into the rhythm, and Archer writhed with pleasured abandon, the entire experience heightened by the proximity of the dangerous talons to his tender flesh.

Rake was teasing him now, varying the speed and strength of his thrusts, using hands and mouth with unholy skill until Archer was sobbing, his entire body shimmering green-gold as he swung out into the distance suspended between agony and ecstasy.

Time paused.

“Don’t leave me…like this!” Archer groaned. At least he meant to add the “like this.” Fortunately his naked little plea was lost in Rake’s snarl as he plunged into him, driving Archer toward the peak, pumping his rigid cock in the same rhythm. Archer felt all semblance of control slip away and he squirmed and twisted, trying to draw that indescribable sensation more deeply into himself. Rake’s mouth found his ear and he began to lick the upswept point. Something ignited, blazed; every muscle in Archer’s body locked. Rake bucked hard into him. It was like being filled with burning glass and at the same time it felt so impossibly, terrifyingly wonderful that Archer feared he would lose what little mind he had left.

Rake sucked hard on Archer’s ear and Archer screamed. He felt himself plummeting like a fallen star, giving off sparks as he dropped like a rock into the roaring red light that was Rake.

***

It seemed a long time later when the red glare faded and the world took shape once more. Lanterns swayed gently above a comfortable bed, blue hearts pulsing. Limp and trembling, Archer lay quietly as Rake softened and slid out of his body. He could see the glitter of his own drying release everywhere: lamps, sheets, Rake’s chest as well as his own, marked with it.

“Well, Puck? Better than picture postcards?” Rake’s voice was human again, though gruff from his shouts.  

“Better.” Archer laughed shakily. “Did you just call me a rude name?”

Rake made a dismissive noise, gathered him close to his massive chest. His claws had retracted once more and his hands were gentle. Disarmingly gentle. “Whither wander you?”

Shakespeare. A poetry-spouting demon. A demon Irregular. Archer sniffed in absent disapproval. He was still considering the first question. He felt like something consumed by fire, hollowed out and only the shell left. Whatever he had imagined…Well, imagination could not do this reality justice.  

Rake nuzzled his cheek and temple, but, mercifully, was careful to avoid Archer’s ears.

“How can you be…?” Archer began finally, troubled.

“A demon?”

“A badge.”

It was a moment or two before Rake said vaguely, “If you can’t beat them, join them.”

Archer raised his head, trying to read the truth in the midnight shadows. There was only the gleam of eyes, the gleam of teeth.

“You don’t feel…”

“What?”

“Divided loyalties?”

“No. The mortal and immortal realms must work together or all will perish.”

Propaganda. But there was truth in it all the same. Archer had not lived among humans for nearly a century without noticing that for all their fragility they could do a lot of damage. Even without the interference of humans, the other realms had a knack for self-destruction. Remembering how Greine the Usurper had put down the Irish sidhe revolts only too well, he shivered.

Rake cradled him closer, muttering, “Sleep now, little imp.”

Archer’s smile was wry. So the legends were true in that much at least. Demons were soft and sentimental after sex. With the lovers they didn’t kill, anyway. His body still rang with little thrums of pleasure. He humored Rake, snuggling closer still, hearing the muted boom of the eight-chambered demon heart, but his mind continued to flit from thought to thought like a bee sipping nectar.

It was all very well to say the realms could only survive through cooperation, but how had Rake, a descendent of creatures that would once have eaten humans for between-meal snacks, become a protector of mortals?

Come to think of it, how old
was
Rake? Maybe he hadn’t been joking about eating his first wife. Archer shivered. Rake growled something in—Babylonian? Sumerian? Hittite?—and kissed the top of Archer’s head.

Archer’s heart swelled and he kissed Rake back. He liked kissing Rake. His chest was smooth and his skin warm and he smelled of sex and vanilla and he had delivered more physical pleasure in the last half hour than Archer had known in the last half century. The caress was automatic, of course. Just good manners. He appreciated Rake’s sexual expertise and it was very nice to be held like this, to fall asleep in someone’s arms. Not that he planned on falling asleep. Archer had places to go and things to do.

Not immediately. He could wait a bit. Make sure Rake was deeply asleep. That was just common sense.

What did Rake want from him? Archer continued to mull it over. Was tonight intended as some sort of seduction whereupon, following the fulfillment of a sexual fantasy, Archer spilled all his deepest, darkest secrets and promised to help the badges round up his old comrades? If so, Rake had forgotten to ask him about his deepest, darkest secrets.

He wondered if Gaki had noticed him leaving with Rake. That was liable to send the wrong message.

When he was sure Rake was truly asleep, Archer slipped out from beneath his muscular arm, using a glamour to trick Rake’s sleeping consciousness into believing Archer still lay next to him. For long seconds he stood beside the bed and stared down at Rake’s relaxed form. There was no sign of the demon now. Rake looked like any weary mortal. Weary and ridiculously content.

Archer found himself unexpectedly reluctant to leave. It would be nice to spend the night, to sleep with the heartbeat of the sea pounding beneath the building, lulling him. Nice to wake tomorrow together and have toast and honey in that sunny room and let Rake cuddle him. Just a little. Perhaps they would talk and laugh and talk some more. Not about world-shaking events. Not about their jobs or politics. Only about matters important to themselves.

He listened to the echo of his thoughts with disquiet. What was he thinking? That fantasy wasn’t merely foolish; it was dangerous. And not merely for himself.

He found his clothes in the living room and dressed silently. The wards on the door took a few minutes to figure out. Rake clearly didn’t like to take chances. At last Archer opened the door and stepped quietly into the dry, temperature-controlled hall. The building continued to slumber. He walked briskly to the front entrance and let himself into a night that smelled of old wood, plum blossoms, and starlight.

His ears still throbbed, almost unbearably sensitive after Rake’s attentions. Archer shivered, remembering. His whole body ached in a distant way, not from the scratches and bites and bruises inevitably resulting from coupling with a demon, but with pangs of something like nostalgia. Missing Rake’s touch already—and he had nothing to anticipate because this had been a one-off. He could not risk it being anything else. Thus the walk along the quiet street, moonlight glancing off the hoods of cars, the lamplight slicing through shrubbery, seemed poignant and bittersweet. It felt as though he was leaving home forever as he walked down the deserted street to his car.

Archer jeered at himself as he climbed into his Beetle and started the engine.

***

Gaki’s estate was a tree-shrouded sanctuary in North Vancouver far from the hustle and bustle of the city proper. Archer studied the layout from behind the tall, spiked gates. It wasn’t as large and ostentatious as he had expected. A custom-designed Craftsman four-story with a detached garage and large guest cottage. The property was positioned within a protected bay on a private peninsula with a good 650 feet of private waterfront and sandy beach.

The house was well guarded with everything from security cameras to protection spells.

Standing deep in the shadows and well away from the biting iron of the double gates, Archer contemplated the dark windows.

They were there, he knew it. The beads were hidden somewhere in that house.
His
beads. Jewels designed by long ago faerie artisans for Archer’s family.

Did the beads sense his presence? Did they warm to life anticipating his touch? Did they know that soon he would have them?

A light went on in the highest story of the house and began to glow green.

Archer smiled. Yes. Soon they would be his.

 Chapter Seven

Even before the naga skin came back to life and ate the guide for the tour that had been specially arranged for a group of retirees from the Slovakian NIAD branch office, Archer was having a lousy day. But an eighteen-foot hooded cobra as wide as a Douglas fir loose in the yellow marble halls of the Museum of State-Sanctioned Antiquities in Vancouver took precedence over a sleepless night, running out of honey for his morning tea, and a stolen parking spot.   

“Tell Barry to get everyone else out of the museum,” Archer ordered Mr. Baker, who had run, panicked, to his office to report the terrible news. “Where’s the rest of the tour party?”

Mr. Baker shook his head. His mouth worked. His eyes were stricken. He had been acting as docent for this very special event when the glass case had cracked and then burst apart to release a fanged nightmare.

Archer shoved him out of his office and sent him stumbling toward Barry’s. “Never mind. Go tell Mr. Littlechurch.”

As Mr. Baker fled, Archer yanked the fire alarm. Bells clamored overhead, the sound ricocheting off the stone and drowning the cries and screams coming from the exhibition hall. He returned to his desk and pressed the silent panic button under the birch top.

That technically ended his responsibility. According to the government employee handbook, he could now lock himself in his office or flee the museum, whichever seemed to offer the best chance of survival. He certainly owed no loyalty to a group of badges, retired or otherwise, but somehow he could no longer think of Irregulars without thinking of Rake. Not that Rake would ever be an elderly, helpless human, but—

The entire building shook as though the roof had caved in.

Without further thought, Archer left his office and sprinted down the hallway, skidding to a stop in the doorway of the exhibition hall. The naga was in the center of the long, wide room, its own display case reduced to debris beneath its coils. The surrounding cases had been knocked over and a number of people in plainclothes cowered behind them—with the exception of one old codger who was waving his cane to try and distract the snake from an elderly lady trying to crawl away.

Six feet or so of the cobra’s olive brown body reared up, hood spread, forked tongue flicking out. It swung its massive head, hissing as Archer slid into view.

Archer ducked back, leaning against the wall, heart pounding. That was…one…
big
snake. He swallowed hard, thinking.

“Archer!”

Archer turned his head. Barry wasn’t quite running and still looked startlingly dignified given the circumstances, but he was definitely moving faster than Archer had ever seen him move. “The Irregulars are on the way!”